Council of Elrond

Card text reads

Playable only at the end of the organization phase. Tap a ranger to prevent opponent from playing hazard creatures keyed to against the ranger's company.

My question is: When do I have to tap the ranger for the effect? Also during the organisation phase? Or is it sufficient to respond to the declaration of a creature's attack by tapping a ranger to cancel the attack (and all subsequent ones keyed to wilderness)? Cheers!

Interesting question. I would say that you must do it in the org. phase, but it is only a feeling, because as you point, the text could be interpreted in the other way.

If described activity is action that player may take later, it is indicated by specifying when the action may be taken.

Examples:

Dragon-feuds wrote:Playable during the organization phase. For the rest of the turn, you may discard a Dragon or Drake hazard creature from your hand to cancel a Dragon or Drake attack against any of your companies. '...There were lots of dragons in the North in those days, and gold was probably getting scarce up there...' -Hob

Great Ship (from METW Unlimited Edition;includes errata) wrote:Tap a character in target company during the organization phase to play Great Ship on that company. If a company's current site path contains a coastal sea region and no consecutive non-coastal sea regions, until the end of the turn any character in the company may tap to cancel the effects of one hazard that targets the company. ...he chose the greatest ship to be his own, and he went up into it. Then he let sound a great concourse of trumpets...-LotRV

Underlines mine.

Otherwise the activity is either a part of declaration (i.e. is active condition of card) or it is action performed at resolution of the card.

Heh. The card doesn't list a duration for the effect, nor does it tell us when to discard the short-event.

MELE Rules wrote:Short-event - A short-event's effects are implemented; then, it is discarded. The effects of some short-events last for a specific period as stated on its card (e.g., some say: "until the end of the turn").

Therefore, the only time you can tap the Ranger is before the card is discarded. The effect, by rule, actually lasts the same amount of time, because it doesn't say it lasts longer.

Good thing you can avoid all those hazards at the end of the organization phase!

(Goes off to grumble more about ICE's lousy wording . . . )

Bandobras Took wrote:... The effect, by rule, actually lasts the same amount of time, because it doesn't say it lasts longer.

Wouldn't that mean the effect doesn't last longer than the organisation phase? The card text doesn't say the effect lasts until the end of the M/H phase (or longer). ?

Yes. This unfortunately applies to a lot of short events as written by ICE. The common practice is to just assume that short event effects last however long they're supposed to last in order to have an actual in-game effect, but this is a tradition rather than an actual game rule.